11 Ways to be a Shit Boss

They say people don’t leave bad jobs; they leave bad managers. And a lot of us could empathize with this — seeing our own boss in Bill Lumbergh, the passive-aggressive cubicle stalker in Office Space. But now, the rise of remote work environments have created new ways to be a shit.

So, for managers who want to demoralize hardworking, well-intentioned employees, this list is for you. It will help you find new ways to mistreat your staff, knowing they can’t leave because, well…what would they do without the health insurance you lord over them?

Most importantly, you’ll learn new tactics to drag out busywork. Ensuring most of their time is spent staring at a computer screen rather than being with their families.

Let’s, uhhh, yeeeeeah….let’s go ahead and dive right in, mmmkay?
That’d be great…

11) Don’t pay attention during video chats.

Instead, zone out. Always appear to be reading an important email. Do occasionally chime back in and ask someone to repeat something they said. This ensures everybody understands that you were barely listening, if at all.

This is crucial because we need your team to know that you are too busy to sit and listen to them in a meeting you requested they attend.

10) Reward them with more work

Rewards are essential when it comes to developing human behavior. Small acts can help dramatically impact a person’s motivation.

If an employee works hard all week and finishes their work by Thursday, be sure to give them even more stuff to do on Friday. This is crucial to keep them barely motivated and feeling like no matter how hard they work, none of it will ever matter.

To sweeten the reward further, make it feel like there are a thousand other things for them to do. That once they finish their current work, there is an endless amount that they continue working on every. single. day. for. the. rest. of. their. lives.

9) Set zero expectations

Don’t tell anyone what’s coming up or what to expect. Instead, surprise your team with a new fire to put out every day. They’ll love it!

8) Don’t respect anyone’s time.

This will quickly become your new favorite. The best part is that you can do it multiple times per day to numerous people.

• Schedule a meeting for 30mins, the day before
• Email attendees at the start time saying you’ll be 5mins late
• Show up 15mins late.
• Drag the discussion out for an hour instead of the 30mins everybody had planned.

7) Have unnecessarily large meetings

Can you imagine having a meeting with the few key people involved in a project — THEN emailing those who didn’t attend with a copy of what was discussed and next steps?! How ridiculous.

Instead, let’s get 25 people on an hour-long video meeting “just to listen” if something important is mentioned. 25hrs of productivity well spent right there!

6) Make them work more; you pay them FULL-time, dammit.

Those ungrateful bastards. Upset because you’re texting them at 8pm about something that could have easily waited until next week. BUT, it was on your mind right then & there, so YES. You absolutely had to interrupt their night to talk about it at this very moment.

After all, this is why you pay them full-time, right? So you can bastardize their personal life, make them work more, and have them on call 24/7?

They do a job, you give them money. If you mentally beat the employee down over the years, well, that’s their problem. They can go pay for health insurance on their own.

5) Always use instant messaging.

Continually interrupt their workday with inane crap and send instant messages, which pull them away from whatever task they were working on. This ensures you’ve disrupted their workflow, and they can spend the next 25mins trying to get back to where they were.

Programs like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Apple Messages do this efficiently. And hell, text if you really need to!

4) Keep secrets

Hide things, tell little lies — this is always a solid move. Your team will feel more disheartened and engulfed by the drama you create when you slowly drip this information out instead.

3) Continually place in new projects that take priority.

Just when they feel like they’re getting ahead, give them something new to work on! And don’t worry about the repercussions of pushing this new project on them; pfffft, not your problem.

2) Pretend they don’t have a family

Even if they have 2 kids, a sick mother, have been fighting with their spouse and dealing with the grief of losing someone to COVID, it is still not our problem as their shit boss.

“GET YOUR WORK DONE!”
Am I right?! Whiners.

With this, do not consider an employee’s personal life when talking to them or assigning them work. Mental health — pffft! More like schmental mealth. You pay them! They just need to do their damn job. It’s not like productivity is directly linked to motivation anyway.

1) Get them back in the office ASAP

How else can you possibly manage an employee if you don’t physically see them? What — judge them by their work? Now you’re just ridiculous. That would be more work on my part, as the boss.

It’s way more comfortable to watch them sit down at a desk and continue to passive-aggressively comment about them leaving 20 mins early last week.

Shit bosses, unite!

Do not accept this radically new world of remote working. It could unravel the very fabric of our society.

We need people back in the office. The nanny and daycare profession may never survive if people can raise their children and work from home. It’s time to insist parents spend exuberant amounts of money to let strangers raise their children. This way shit bosses can look them in a desk and say, “you, you’re doing a good job sitting there.”

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I hope you have found this guide useful. By following these guidelines, bosses worldwide can ensure their employees are kept in an unmotivated, lethargic state to bring home to their children.

Because at the end of all our shit boss methods, it’s not about our employee. We can do so much more by ensuring they bring this same shit attitude into raising their children. This way, we make sure the next generation falls in line.

If you’d prefer to be a great boss, sign up for the 6-Week Cycles virtual coach. You’ll get one email per day, for six weeks, to improve your own productivity and start being a great boss.

Joe Martin is a Chicago-based author & entrepreneur with a fascination for time travel. His ideas around corporate culture, planning, and productivity have been featured on FOX News, WGN, and the TEDx stage.